“Oh, may I?” cried the little girl. Somehow, she did not feel that she could face Uncle Joe just now with this new thought that Chet Gormley’s words had put into her heart. Then she hesitated, with her hand on the gate latch. “Will there be some scraps for Prince?” she asked. “Or bones?” “I believe I can find something for Prince,” Miss Amanda replied. “I owe him more than one good dinner, I guess, for killing that snake. Come in, and we will see.” The little girl at once became more cheerful. She washed her hands and face at the pump bench, as had Mr. Parlow. She found his big spectacles for him (Miss Amanda declared he always managed to lose them when he took them off); and Carolyn May wiped the lenses, too, before the carpenter set them on his nose again. “There! I believe I kin see good for the first time to-day,” he declared. “I reckon I could have seen my work better all the forenoon if I’d had my specs polished up that-a-way. You air a spry young’un, Carolyn May.” With this heart-warming word of approval, they went in to dinner. Miss Amanda was already “dishing up.” Unlike the custom at the Stagg house, the Parlows ate in the dining-room. The kitchen was small. It seemed quite like old times to Carolyn May. Miss Amanda’s way of setting the table and serving the food was like her mamma’s way. There were individual bread-and-butter plates, and a knife for one’s butter and another for one’s meat, and several other articles of table furnishings that good Aunty Rose knew nothing about. Carolyn May thought that Miss Amanda, in her house dress and ruffled apron, with her sleeves turned back above her dimpled, brown elbows, was prettier than ever. Miss Amanda had retained her youthfulness to a remarkable degree. Although she was quiet, there was a sparkle in her brown eyes, and a brisk note in her full, contralto voice that charmed the little girl. Her cheerful observations quite enlivened Carolyn May again. Even Mr. Parlow proved to be amusing when he was “warmed up.” “So you didn’t want to go home with Chet Gormley for dinner, eh?” he repeated. “Mebbe you thought Chet wouldn’t leave nothin’ for anybody else to eat?” “Oh, no, Mr. Parlow, it wasn’t that!” Carolyn May said, shaking her head. “But it might ha’ been,” chuckled the carpenter, “if you’d ever seen Chet eat.” “Now, father!” admonished Miss Amanda. “Never did see him eat, did you?” pursued the carpenter, still chuckling. “No, sir.” “Wal, he’s holler to his heels, and it’s an all-fired long holler, at that! Chet worked for Deacon Allbright, out on the South Road, ’fore he went to Stagg’s store. He only worked there part of a season, for he an’ the deacon couldn’t get along—no more’n twin brothers,” declared Mr. Parlow.